InfertilityThe issue of fertility and infertility serves as a window enabling us to examine
the interaction of the ideological and biological views discussed above with the
pressures exerted on these processes in real life. In medieval Europe, fertility
was central to the success of a match. Since children were often betrothed and
at times even married before reaching sexual maturity, the birth of children
was seen as evidence that the match made by parents, often for financial rea-
sons, was indeed a fruitful one.^45 As comparative anthropological studies have
shown, the birth of a first child in situations like this often reaffirms and solid-
ifies marriage ties.^46 I would even suggest that, in the case of arranged child
marriages, this stage in the life of a couple was more important than the mar-
riage ceremony itself.^47
By examining medieval attitudes toward fertility, we may view both sides of
the same coin. On the one hand, people suffering from infertility are an im-
portant topic of discussion. But our inquiry may also teach us much about the
treatment of the birth of children in a “normal” fertile situation. If each mar-
riage union, Jewish and Christian alike, was expected to produce offspring,
then the treatment of infertile couples provides a useful locus for the exami-
nation of shared and differing attitudes of Jews and Christians toward procre-
ation. A central question will be whether or not the differing attitudes toward
procreation have any influence over the ways in which Jewish and Christian
society treated infertility.
The practical methods of dealing with infertility in medieval Jewish and
Christian society were not all that different. The ideas expressed in the sources
of the two societies, in the case of couples who did not succeed in conceiving,
concurred in their aim to determine who was responsible for the problem. In-
fertility was believed to be hereditary or the result of a physical fault or be-
witchment. Women were usually blamed for infertility, and only in rare cases
was the cause of infertility attributed to men. In addition, there was a grave dif-
ference between the reasons given to explain female and male infertility.
While female infertility was usually ascribed to physical problems, and only
rarely associated with witchcraft, male fertility was most often explained as the
result of a spell, usually cast by women.
This understanding can be seen as somewhat ironic: Men were given most
of the credit for the creation of a healthy fetus, but women were held respon-
sible for problems in conception.^48 This difference also emphasizes the re-
sponsibility allocated women over birth. In addition, in a society in which male
pride rested in part on having many children, a man who was sterile faced great
embarrassment.^49
An issue that surfaces frequently in the context of infertility is the status of a
marriage in which one of the spouses was unable to have children. The solu-
tions to these problems were varied in both Judaism and in Christianity and